Intentions to Marry, 1874

Reference: Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Notices of intention to marry, Series 8937, R2840386, Archives New Zealand Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington

Page 746

District of Dunedin Quarter ending Jul - Sep

No	Date of Notice	Names and Surnames of Parties	BDM Match	Condition	Calling or Profession	Age	Dwelling Place	Length of Residence	Marriage Place	Folio	Consent	Date of Certificate	Officiating Minister
220	4 July 1874	John Shaw Margaret M'Iver	John Shaw Margaret McIver 💍 1874/10216	Bachelor Spinster	Laborer	40 21	Dunedin Dunedin	2 months 5 months	In St Joseph's Church	1221		July 24	The Bishop Moran
221	July 8	James Daniel Low Eliza Myall	James Daniel Low Eliza Myall 💍 1874/10183	Bachelor Spinster	Bricklayer	21 20	Dunedin Dunedin	21 years 12 years	In the house of James Myall	1466	James Myall, Father	July 8	Rev Dr Stuart
222	July 10	George Hendrie Amos Elizabeth Barrett	George Hendrie Amos Elizabeth Barrett 💍 1874/9517	Bachelor Spinster	Engineer	32 17	Kensington Kensington	3 months 3 months	In St. Paul's Church Dunedin	1422	Michael Barrett, Father	July 10	Rev E. G. Edwards
223	July 13	John Joseph Eason Harriett Bentley	John Joseph Eason Harriet Bentley 💍 1874/10189	Bachelor Spinster	Wool Classer	24 20	Dunedin Dunedin	11 years 1 week	In the house of Mr Thos Eason	1468	Charles Bentley, Father	July 13	Rev Dr Stuart
224	July 13	William Lock Jane McKenzie Wilson	William Lock Jane McKenzie Wilson 💍 1874/10192	Bachelor Spinster	Baker	32 21	Dunedin Dunedin	5 days 14 years	in the house of William Wilson	1469		July 13	Rev Dr Stuart
225	July 15	John Matheson McRae Eliza Atkinson	John Mathewson McRae Eliza Atkinson 💍 1874/10186	Bachelor Spinster	Farmer	26 21	Dunedin Dunedin	3 days 3 days	In Knox Church Dunedin	1467		July 15	Rev Dr Stuart
226	July 16	John Darley Isabella Louisa Chammond	John Dailey Isabella Louisa Crammond 💍 1874/9511	Bachelor Spinster	Shoemaker	32 24	Dunedin Dunedin	15 months 14 days	In St Pauls Church Dunedin	1240		July 16	Rev E. G. Penny
227	July 17	George William Small Annie Hammond Bruce	George William Smart Annie Hammond Bruce 💍 1874/9913	Bachelor Spinster	Steward	21 20	Dunedin Dunedin	6 month 3 weeks	In the Office of the Registrar of Marriages Dunedin	1370	Annie Bruce, Mother	July 17	W Parker Sheil Registrar of Marriages
228	July 18	Clifford Williams Elizabeth Moore	Clifford Williams Elizabeth Moore 💍 1874/13141	Widower Spinster	Mariner	30 24	Dunedin Dunedin	9 years 2 years	In All Saints Church Dunedin	2487		July 18	Rev R L Stanford

These records have been automatically transcribed and must be verified using the page image (below)

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Attribution: This image was digitised by Archives NZ Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga and is republished here under CC BY. It has been cropped and rotated for convenience.

What is an Intention to Marry?

The 1854 Marriage Act required Pakeha settlers (and later Maori) to register their intention to marry from 1855. The resulting Notices of intention to marry were sent by the district registrars to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages and bound into large volumes, each containing a year of notices. These registers were eventually deposited with Archives New Zealand.

What information does an ItM record?

A typical Intention to Marry notice records:

the bride and groom's full names
occupation of the groom (and sometimes the bride)
their ages
district where the marriage would take place
how long they had resided in the district
Where the marriage would take place (eg, a specific church)
Who would officiate the marriage (eg, a minister)
The date of the notice and also a date when the certificate was issued. Marriages had to take place within 3 months, and usually occurred within a week or so of the certificate date.
If one of the parties was under 21, a parent who consented to their marriage was usually specified

These details can provide clues for genealogical and historical research. Knowing the date and district makes it easier to look for wedding notices in Papers Past, and the amount of time that the parties had resided in a district can offer clues to whether a person was born in NZ, or when they immigrated.

However, finding individual records in the Intentions to Marry registers was typically a slow and manual process, usually requiring an in-person visit to Archives NZ's Wellington office (during limited opening hours) and using a handwritten card catalogue index to look up individual names.

Eight years of the registers had been digitised by Archives NZ prior to 2024, but even these digital versions required the use of a manual index and usually examining several pages to locate specific records.

What is the Intentions to Marry Project?

This project aims to transcribe the New Zealand Intentions to Marry registers (from 1855 to 1925) with the assistance of new technology (AI), making the records freely available and easily searchable.

The ITM records have also been cross-referenced with the registered marriages at DIA Births, Deaths and Marriages, where possible (a small fraction of the recorded intentions to marry did not become a registered marriage).

Currently we have almost all records between 1855 and 1894. More registers will be added as the project continues.

The project is led by Luke Howison, a web developer who made the free genealogical research search tool NZ Ancestor Search Helper and Archway-style Collections Search. There are also some wonderful volunteers assisting with digitising the registers.

Can I volunteer to help?

Yes, you can! You can sign up to correct errors in the transcribed records and match ITMs with registered marriages.

I am also looking for Wellington-based volunteers to help me digitise more years of the registers. I can provide lighting equipment and a 'clicker' (to trigger your phone's camera).

How is the transcription done?

There are several steps to digitising and transcribing the records:

Digitising the registers (taking clean, straight, high-quality photos)
Processing the digitised pages by straightening, cropping and sharpening the images
Transcribing each page with a combination of AI tools
Matching each ITM with a registered marriage when possible
Human verification of the transcribed information

The main LLM (AI) used are the Google Gemini Pro and Flash models, which have excellent 'Vision' capabilities, and a generous free tier.

Archives NZ has released the register years they have digitised (1865-69, 1872, 1874 and 1880) under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

The Intention to Marry registers (up to 1925) are more than 100 years old, so their Crown Copyright has expired, putting them in the public domain. This also applies to any 'mechanical reproductions' (eg, pictures or photocopies) of their content without substantial alteration.

The transcribed records on this website are released under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes, while giving credit to the creator (NZ Intentions to Marry Project).